Google Has Business Problems, Not Political Problems

David Drummond, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, published his new article on google blog. He said google is considering the exit from Chinese market. His excuse is that the censorship from Chinese government.

Is this true? Maybe not.

Google has been experiencing huge business presure in Chinese market due to the existence of Chinese search-engine provider Baidu.com that domintates there for long. Google tried hard to break into the fast expanding market with huge investment, but little progress has been made.

Kai-Fu Lee is an oversea Chinese, who is one of the most prominent figures in the Chinese internet sector. Google hired him when he was a corporate vice president of interactive services in microsft. This caused a 2005 legal dispute between Google and Microsoft. Dr. Lee became the founding president of Google China, serving from July, 2005 through September 4, 2009.

Dr. Lee quited his job in Google, why? Dr. Lee said he wanted to pursue his own oppertunities in China. But some thing Google really does not want to acknowledge: Business failure in China.

China has the censorship system there for long time, even before Google started its business in China. We all know that Chinese web contents are becoming more and more open or you can say that much fewer censored contents that before. The fact no one can deny is that Google tried to copperated with the system when the system was much stricter. It is rediculous for Google to speak out moral judgement openly today. Would Google have the thought of exiting from Chinese market if its business had done well there? No way!! What I can say is that Google is having business trouble in China rather than political trouble.

Google is really of such a high moral standard? Maybe, maybe not. Chinese government acused the search engine has too much pornographic contents on its Chinese web.

I just give readers of an exmple to show the difference of astonishing difference between Google's Chinese web and its English web. Both seach the key word "Perfect-G":

This comes from its English version search engine.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS265&um=1&sa=1&q=Perfect-G&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0

This from its Chinese Search engine. (WARNING: 18+ pictures will show up)

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=Perfect-G&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

You can tell that Google behaves much better in US, but not so much to Chinese users.

It is well known that in Chinese market of internt content providers, Chinese companies are doing better than those from US. I just gave you some examples:
In instant messenger service: China's QQ beats any US IM service providers.
In E-business, China Alibaba and Taobao (Actaully Alibaba owns Taobao) beats Ebay

This situation is not simply caused by political reasons. There are cultural reasons behind. Search engine market may experience political problems, but how about instant messenger service and E-commercial service? I doubt any censorship involved.

Google has to admit it is a business loser in Chinese market. No scapegoat is needed, Period!

India's plans are often ambitious, But Can be fulfilled?

Indians often talk about how wonderful India will be and how fast they are developing. This makes world believe India is almost a superpower. How this can happen? Their government always give Indians big hopes, and Indians take those plan as reality. But the truth is very different. Let me give you one example from India's electricity industry.

India is awfully short of electricity. In 2007, India had only a total of power generation capacity of 130,000MW (similar as UK's capacity, but UK has tiny population comparing with India's.).

In May 2007, India prime minister gave Indians a big promise: India planed to add 78000 MW new capacity with some effort during the 5 years ending in March 2012. Can this be a possible mission for India?

I found one sentence like this in an article that was published in March 2009: (Source)

"India’s track record in adding power generating capacity is unenviable. In the five years to 2007, the country added 20,950MW of capacity, against a target of 41,110MW. "

Another report in July 2009 told the similar story: (Source)

In 2007/08 (Means April 2007 to March 2008, India's fisical year) India produced only 77 percent of the revised target of 12 GW and last year (2008/09) it was only 46 percent of the targetted 7.53 GW.

That means in the two years between April 2007 and March 2009, India only added 12,703MW capacity.

Is India's plan really that ambitious? Since Indians often said India will surpass China. I can tell you some related numbers about China:

At the end of 2008, China has total power capacity of 792,530 MW (camparin with India's about 150,000 MW). China addded 90,510 MW capacity in 2008 alone. (including hydropower of 20,100 MW, windmil of 4,660 MW). (Source)